Creation of the Self
by HousePlant
Summary: When you only have seven days to make something out of nothing, something is bound to go wrong. Chasecentric oneshot. Mildimplied Slash. Based on the Seven Days of Creation.


Chase-centric, Post _The Mistake_**.  
**Slight House/Chase, or more like Chase>House.

**A/N:** This is what happens when I have a full month of non-angsting and haven't finished anything in weeks. For full effect you have to understand Latin, but since most of you don't (i'm assuming here), you should at least know that _Ego te absolvo a peccatis tuis _means_ I absolve you from your sins._

_

* * *

_**Creation of the Self**

i. Chase has been given a week.  
He asks them why:  
Cuddy says it's a week to himself.  
Foreman says it's a week to fix himself.  
Cameron says it's a week to find himself.  
House refuses to answer that stupid question.  
So Chase searches in the places he last saw his Self.

ii. The first few days he looks in every crack of the Cathedral wall and floor. He looks within every crevice in the wood of the crucifixesadorned with gold and rosaries, as he says his Hail Mary-s, Our Father-s and Glory Be-s. He looks between the pages of his childhood prayer book and those of the Scriptures.

iii. Chase even goes so far as to confess on the fourth day: He sits, stiff as the oak of the Confession Booth walls surrounding him. He rests his head and inhales the musty scent; weakened by the annual application of stain. Chase slackens and digs for the sins he has worked to suppress for a large chunk of his life. At first it's only about the big things: the negligence, the betrayal. Cameron. Then the list mushrooms in his mind as he finds every minor fault and pins it at a sin. It's automatic after a while as he forgets about the priest, the walls pressing in on him and the loneliness that's eating him from the inside out. Soon enough Chase runs out of things to say so he bows his head and repents.

_Deus meus, ex toto corde poenitet  
__Me omnium meorum peccatorum,  
__Eaque detestor, quia peccando,  
__Non solum poenas a te iuste  
__Statutas promeritus sum,  
__Sed praesertim quia offendi te,  
__Summum bonum, ac dignum qui  
__Super omnia diligaris.  
__Ideo firmiter propono,  
__Adiuvante gratia tua,  
__De cetero me non peccaturum  
__Peccandique occasiones  
__Proximas fugiturum.  
__Amen._

Suddenly it's all gone, and Chase can't breathe. He doesn't wait for the priest to absolve him because it's all too much. It's as though they've taken his faults and now he is empty, and Chase can't bear to be empty—so he runs.

_Ego te absolvo a peccatis tuis…_

iv. It's five days in and Chase looks everywhere. He looks at the bottom of a bottle too, though not for himself. He tries to find the reasons and to fill the emptiness with the weight of another mistake.  
Smirnoff turns to bile in his stomach; it's bitterer coming up than it was going down and Chase dry heaves several more times before flushing, splashing his face with cold water and passing out again.

v.Day six, he wakes up hungry and nauseated with a pounding headache, wondering how they all do it. His mother for one; how did she manage to get drunk on a regular basis without wanting to take a sledge-hammer to her own head the morning after? Then there are all those people on TV, and every other alcoholic in the world. Chase thinks he's not cut out for this.  
He thinks about House and wonders how he drinks. Then he wonders what House drinks and when. Chase figures it's when he is alone, though sometimes it might be with Wilson. He falls asleep thinking about House's mistakes instead of his own.

vi. Chase sleeps through the last day so he won't feel anything at all.

vii. Day eight and he reached his Limit: Chase purposely wakes up late. He takes a shower, dresses for work and rushes to get there on time. He resolves not to think about himself—or his lack of self—but fails as soon as he finds blue eyes probing him. House spends half the day defiling Chase with his gaze, the other half he devotes to jibes and patients, pushing to see how far Chase can go before snapping again.  
Chase spends the whole day shivering under those looks, losing whatever little bits of himself he has left with each of House's insults.

viii. By end of the day he's empty again. Entirely this time: he finds himself to be vacant, just a vessel and there's nothing in sight to fill him. Chase knows that he has nothing to lose when he grabs his boss on the way out of the conference room. He knows that it's the biggest error he could make short of murder but Chase expects it's enough weight to give him peace for a while. What he doesn't expect is to find a bit of what he's been looking for in that first kiss. Or to put himself together during the collective touches, which evolve to caresses and subsequent trips to House's condo. At first it's an accident but before long that particular mistake becomes routine.

ix. At work, Chase stops shrinking away, because House stops looking at him after that first night.  
House never mentions it but Chase knows why.  
Chase knows that House is too busy trying to find the piece of himself that Chase stole.


End file.
